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Astro’s digital marketing arm Blaze Digital and Grup Majalah Karangkraf have partnered to create Malaysia’s largest Malay digital content network. This is following the completion of Astro’s joint venture with Karangkraf, the newly formed unit at Nu Ideaktiv.

The new unit was formed for the creation of local content and Nusantara intellectual properties in Malaysia. Blaze Digital now adds 15 of Karangkraf’s popular brands like Pa&Ma, Remaja, Mingguan Wanita, Media Hiburan and Sinar Harian’s news site to its current digital offering.

TH Chong (pictured), group director of Astro media sales said that Astro has a strong presence amongst the Malay speaking community, while Karangkraf is a solid partner. Together both companies will leverage on each other’s strengths to introduce new digital content that appeals to the mass Malay market in Malaysia.

“The evolution of digital media consumption, paid or ads-supported, has expanded Astro’s addressable audience base considerably, from households to individuals. This partnership will further strengthen our leadership in the online space among the Malay audiences,” he added.

Syamil Fahim, CEO of Nu Ideaktiv, said: “We are excited about our partnership with Astro, specifically about our collective impact in the digital advertising space. Our titles cover every life stage of the Malay community and our successful track record over the last 40 years proves that. The rich source of audience data combined with experts in the field of branded content make for powerful marketing solutions that cut across print, radio, TV and digital.”

According to the statement, the past 11 months saw Blaze Digital rapidly growing its partner network from 32 to 50 digital brands, increasing its reach to 32 million users on the web and 62.4 million fans on social media platforms. It was first launched last year to offer integrated digital-first solutions for marketers across Astro’s 21 digital brands.

Today, Astro is in 75% of Malaysian households, serving 23 million individuals on all screens, at home, live, on the go and on demand while Karangkraf has 15 million readers across its newspaper and magazine publications and online media assets.

In Q4 2018, Astro’s total Adex registered a 2% growth yoy from RM705mn to RM722mn and this includes its digital adex which grew 17% from RM30 million to RM35 million. This led to a share of 44% and 74% in TV adex and radex respectively. This trajectory is expected to continue with focused efforts on providing solutions to both agencies and advertisers alike, driven increasingly by customer persona data.